{"id":55285,"date":"2013-05-09T22:11:12","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T04:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-rejects-dunn-plea-agreement\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:00:09","slug":"judge-rejects-dunn-plea-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-rejects-dunn-plea-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rejects Dunn plea agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dunn\"
Dunn<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mark Dunn, the 46-year-old Cortez man accused of aggressively firing handguns inside two residences, as well as a domestic violence misdemeanor charge, is likely headed for trial.<\/p>\n

During a motions hearing on Tuesday, District Judge Douglas Walker dismissed the 22nd District Attorney\u2019s office\u2019s latest plea agreement, saying the jail sentence was too lenient and did not contain an explicit requirement for domestic violence classes.<\/p>\n

Under the deal, Dunn would have spent up to six years in jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am of the belief that, given the allegations in this case, the plea agreement tendered to the court should be rejected, and I will do so,\u201d Walker said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t strike a good balance to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunn was offered a slightly different plea deal in November by former District Attorney Russell Wasley\u2019s office, but it expired without Dunn entering a plea either way. When Will Furse\u2019s administration took over in January, Deputy District Attorney Lynda Carter made a second offer.<\/p>\n

Unless the DA\u2019s office and Dunn\u2019s defense lawyers \u2014 David Greenberg and Ingrid Alt \u2014 reach a settlement, Dunn will go to trial on June 10. The case was bifurcated into two separate trials: one involving Dunn\u2019s brother, Todd Dunn, and the other involving his wife, Teresa Carlson-Dunn. Which will happen first is unknown at this time.<\/p>\n

Dunn\u2019s legal troubles stem from a sequence of events occurring the night of Sept. 30, 2012.<\/p>\n

According to a Cortez Police Department report, while at the couple\u2019s home, Dunn became angry with his wife for questioning whether he should be driving after consuming alcohol. Dunn allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband and fired a shot slightly above and left of Carlson-Dunn\u2019s head. After she fled the premises in her car, Dunn drove to his brother\u2019s house, where he fought Todd Dunn for control of a different gun. During the fisticuffs, Dunn reportedly bit his brother on the chin.<\/p>\n

After wresting control of the firearm, Dunn allegedly fired it three or four times. One bullet pierced a bedroom wall and barely missed a sleeping child, the son of Todd Dunn\u2019s friend, who was also present.<\/p>\n

Officers arrested Mark Dunn later that night for aggravated robbery, criminal mischief, two counts of felony menacing, being a felon in possession of a firearm, third-degree assault, theft, prohibited use of a firearm, two counts of reckless endangerment and domestic violence.<\/p>\n

The parties will reconvene on May 23, when Walker will decide whether prior misconduct by Dunn is admissible evidence during trial. So-called \u201cprior bad acts\u201d can range from unreported physical altercations to a criminal conviction.<\/p>\n

Greenberg and Alt argued that Dunn is not a malicious man, citing 15 letters of support from people describing him as a \u201cproductive member of this community\u201d who is a business owner and a volunteer. His history of violence, they said, is closely tied to alcohol.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he drinks alcohol, things can go awry,\u201d Alt said.<\/p>\n

Alt questioned the credibility of the Sept. 30 eyewitnesses. Both Todd Dunn and his friend were \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d when interviewed by police that night, she said, with \u201cconsiderable inconsistencies\u201d in their accounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly I\u2019m not quite sure what (Carlson-Dunn) will say, depending on the day she comes to court,\u201d Alt added, stating her belief that these \u201cproof problems\u201d will make it difficult for the DA\u2019s office to obtain a conviction.<\/p>\n

The Sept. 30 events were not Dunn\u2019s first brush with the law in 2012.<\/p>\n

He also was accused of stabbing a fellow patron outside Blondie\u2019s Pub and Grub (now Blondie\u2019s Trophy Room) on Aug. 16, but no charges were filed. Witnesses told investigators that Dunn stabbed Josh Pankoff in self-defense, as the two men prepared to fight outside the bar.<\/p>\n

lukeg@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

stage for two separate trials<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[76],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-55285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-u-s-22nd-judicial-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62761,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55285\/revisions\/62761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55285"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=55285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}